Many industries, including the automotive industry, use zinc-coated steel materials to form various structures, including automobile frames and bodies. Creating such structures typically requires using one or more types of welding. While zinc provides excellent corrosion resistance to steel, zinc can also cause difficulties during welding.
During fusion welding, for example, explosive zinc vapor can form and cause undesirable spattering of the weld metal, as well as extensive porosity in the weld after solidification. In other words, there is a relation between the quality of a weld, and the amount of vaporized zinc present during the welding process. The issue of porosity is more significant in certain types of welds, such as lap welds, which are a preferred welding method for automotive body fabrication. Thus, the scrap rate in this type of welding process is typically higher, forcing manufacturers to incur material losses to maintain certain quality standards. Manufacturers that weld zinc-coated steel materials would benefit from improved welding techniques and in-process quality control methods.